Natalie is now 4 months and a week old. We had her 4 month well-baby check and she is 24 inches tall (normal) and 16.3 lbs... that's 95% for girls. one little, rolly-poly girl baby. :) she is such a good sleeper at night - she usually falls asleep 11-12midnight and will sleep until 6 or 7. she usually stays awake for 30-45 minutes and then sleeps until 9:30 or 10am. so as long as i am on the ball and get myself in bed after she goes down, i get plenty of sleep. it is so nice! thomas woke up around 1-2am and 5am, so at 4 months, we had to sleep train him, to get him to stop waking up at 1am. it was really hard for 3 days, but by the 5th night, he was fine and started sleeping through from 10pm to 5am. it made a huge difference for us, to not have him waking up in the middle!
I've gotten lots of complaints from my mom that I don't have any photos of natalie that show how "pretty" she is. so this is the best we've got - and still doesn't do her justice! :) at least in my completely biased eyes.
i think i mentioned this before, but natalie is very mellow and easy, and often will just entertain herself if you leave her in her swing or bassinet. however, the big change in the last couple weeks, is she has been more fussy if she can't see us. so now she is mellow, as long as she is perched somewhere where she can take in all the action. oh! one thing that has been hard is she is a light sleeper compared to thomas. even now, thomas is a sound sleeper. once he is asleep, he doesn't wake up for much. :) but with natalie, whenever i take her outside, she either sleeps very lightly, or very little, and then ends up really exhausted and crying by the time we get into the car. at home, she usually naps from 12-2 and 4-6. but anytime we are out (like for church or to visit family on saturdays) she takes maybe a 30-60 minute nap if i'm lucky. then once she's exhausted, overtired, it's hard for her to fall asleep, and she cries more... poor thing. i have really not done any "tummy time" for her, so she is not really about holding her head up. she only holds her head up when she absolutely has to. otherwise, she likes to lay there, in comfort and just look around with her eyes. i started giving her a little tummy time every day last week... hopefully, she'll be holding her head up by herself in a couple weeks.
thomas is still pretty intense about organizing things :) he loves this little lego set my mom gave him that he can make into 3 different types of cars. as you can see, he likes to have everything carefully laid out before he starts a build. then he meticulously follows the instructions. so cute. maybe he'll be an architect or engineer. or just have OCD when he grows up ha ha... he is a good big brother, but he gets a little naughty once in awhile. a couple days ago, i left the room to go get some towels, and when i came back, he had his foam sword poked into her mouth, saying that he was King David, with his mighty sword and shield. As soon as I asked him what he was doing, he quickly withdrew his sword and said "nothing" trying to look very innocent.
well, at least he was not too rough, didn't even get past her teeth. but i took his swords away and told him he doesn't put swords into anyone's mouth. so i've decided i can't leave him alone with her, just to make sure he doesn't do anything that has potential to be something I will regret later.
Other than that, we have noticed that he is really growing up. ever since he started preschool in September, he is acting more like a boy, less like a toddler. We put him in with the 4-5 yr old class, so he's had to grow up a little, and he really watches the older boys in the class, learning and imitating. he's all about swords and shooting, action and killing now. not that he even really comprehends what killing is. i think he thinks it is when someone falls down. *sigh* i know it was bound to happen, just not so soon.
